


thirty-five thousand feet above ground

by zaboraviti



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Airplanes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Classical Music, Dreams, F/F, Music, Soulmates, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22803745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaboraviti/pseuds/zaboraviti
Summary: She is a musician, he is a pilot but they might have something in common.A little bit of music, a little bit of flying, a little bit of loving.
Relationships: Edward Drummond/Alfred Paget, William Lamb 2nd Viscount Melbourne/Victoria of the United Kingdom (1819-1901)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27





	thirty-five thousand feet above ground

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Десять километров над землей](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22801471) by [zaboraviti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaboraviti/pseuds/zaboraviti). 



> just eine kleine NachtVicbourne

Like a predator, too sated and satisfied to toy with its catch, opens its claws and lets go of the ravaged prey, the bow bites the string for the last time to fly off and hover pensively in the air, while the wretched thing lets out the last brief squeal of agony, quivering and finally quiet, finally still.

Slowly, reluctantly, her eyelids flutter open, inviting the outside world back in — and with it in comes a gaze, an incredulous, shocked, hungry stare. She can’t see it with her eyes in the half-light of the audience hall where faces are dark blurry shapes — she senses it with her skin. She has known adoration and lust but this stare makes her shiver with chill and fever, all at the same time. She lowers her trembling arms, the frog of the bow almost slipping from the limp fingers. _Bow._ Bow. _Smile._ Smile. The lights come back on and, choking on the inexplicable excitement, deafened by the cacophony of the applause, she drowns in the sea of faces, searching it for the one she needs to see the most. She doesn’t know why yet she knows that there won’t be any peace for her otherwise, no life for her — nothing for her — but it’s not there anymore, or she would find its owner in the maze of hundreds of other looks, holding it and following it like Ariadne's thread.

The members of the orchestra exchange confused glances behind her back, and the conductor clears her throat awkwardly.

***

He hadn’t followed the news of the musical world in ages and rarely went to the theater. But his chief flight attendant was dumped by a boyfriend, and when they landed at Narita, a sulking Alfred handed two slightly crumpled pieces of paper to the captain and the first officer, saying that he’d rather fold them into a couple of joints and smoke them up than give them to that bastard Yuichi. The pieces of paper were two tickets to the final concert of the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award. “Well, at least you still have your Luan in Joburg, David in San Francisco, Alexander in Moscow and—” Will glanced at Emma for a hint, patting the young man’s shoulder encouragingly. “Santiago in Santiago,” she smiled, putting her hat on. Alfred remained inconsolable — right until they arrived at their hotel, where he forgot his broken heart as his eyes devoured a passing bellboy.

It if was up to Will, he would have stayed in his room or, perhaps, taken a walk in Yoyogi Park or visited Meiji Shrine. But Emma didn’t get many opportunities to show off an evening gown and he didn’t want to let her down. He owed his old friend too much and accompanying her to a concert was the least he could do to repay her. He was already at the door, when he looked at the ticket. He smiled. The last composition had a simple, artless title: “ _Wings”._

From their seats on the third-floor balcony, he could barely make out the musicians’ faces and didn’t pay any attention to the first violin at first. According to the program, one of the four finalists, Victoria Kent, had chosen to play with the orchestra herself. A petite young woman in a modest little black dress with brown hair pulled back in a plain bun jerked up her chin rather belligerently as she placed the violin above her collarbone. The first notes pulled him in, making him lean forward.

Barely aware of himself, he clenched his fists hard, fingernails leaving half-moon marks on the palms of his hands. The young woman on the stage played on, and he felt like the strings of her violin did not end on the pegs, extending instead right to the third floor, right to his heart that trembled with each touch of the bow, and the music, her music — her _Wings —_ fluttered deep inside his chest, and it was so unbearably beautiful and so unbearably painful that tears welled up in his wide eyes. He stared and stared at the violinist, gritting his teeth, willing the shiver to stop. He didn’t know what color her eyes were, he didn’t know how she looked when she smiled, but he knew, oh, he knew it was _her._ He had felt something like this with Caro — but he had been so much younger back then, he had felt everything much more keenly, and the music had been… _not it._ When the final sounds faded into the golden air above the stage, his lungs expelled an involuntary ragged sigh, and his released heart thrashed about in confusion, bleeding where the strings had been attached — and he couldn’t take it any longer. Seconds before the lights came back, he quickly told Emma he would be waiting for her downstairs and stormed out.

***

A pashmina wrapped around her shoulders, a worried look on her face, Emma found him fifteen minutes later. He was huddled on a bench, pale, his forehead beaded with cold sweat. He assured her he was fine — he probably shouldn’t have had takoyaki from that man with a runny nose — and put her on a taxi, saying he was going to take a little walk, have a little air.

He was actually going to do just that, to pull himself together. If it wasn’t for the flight tomorrow, he’d already be pouring himself sake in a street café to muffle the quiet voice (sounding remarkably like Emma’s) that kept droning on in his head about what an idiot he was. However, his feet must have been listening to that voice, because half an hour later he found himself staring, baffled, at the New National Theater again. _William Lamb, you are such an idiot,_ he sighed out loud and went inside. He lingered for a minute in the aisle between the rows of the first-floor seats, admiring the bright natural wood paneling of the walls, the pyramid-shaped ceiling, the majestic pipe organ… The interior of the concert hall that bore the name of the legendary composer reminded him a pagoda turned inside out and was perfect not just aesthetically — everything about it was calculated with a truly Japanese attention to detail. The acoustic design studies alone took five years before Takemitsu Memorial was built. Yeah, if one was to meet one’s fate, this was the place.

Will shook his head with a crooked smile. _She is long gone, and you are an idiot, William Lamb._

Idiot or not, William Lamb was a man of rational, practical mind and since he was already there, he thought he should take a look at the recital hall as well. The latter was much smaller and not as impressive-looking, to say the least. A solitary black grand piano stood on the stage, and Will’s fingers grazed the white and black keys, led by the dormant, almost primal instinct that urges people who don’t even play an instrument touch keys and strings, blow into mouthpieces, rap on taut membranes… The keys clinked softly but clearly: _yes?_ He sat on the stool and chuckled: _yes!_

He didn’t know many pieces by heart and his fingers chose for him, guided by the memory of the heart. _Sonata Pathétique_ — but not all of it, not the dramatic _allegro_ that Caro used to adore, no, only the soothing _adagio cantabile_ that his mother had played for him so often as he drifted off to sleep. The muscle memory was almost on point: only once did he fumble a little before modulating into E-flat major, but he could already see everything so vividly: from the wallpaper in his childhood bedroom and the corner of the blanket with painted notes, to the copper model of a Spitfire on the desk and Mom’s soft hands flittering over the keys. Then an anxious triplet… and a sharp turn into E major — his heart always started racing in this place, for it felt as if the music commanded: _live! LIVE!_ His heart was spluttering now — until it suddenly paused like his fingers: a dull thud came from behind his back and someone gasped loudly. Will leapt to his feet, frantically coming up with excuses and trying to remember the half a dozen of Japanese words he knew. A _gomenasai_ froze on his lips, and so did his whole body, following the suit of his silly heart that must have forgotten it needed to go on beating.

 _Blue_. Her eyes — they were the brightest blue he had ever seen. And when she smiled, most adorable dimples blossomed in the corners of her mouth.

***

Victoria was taking her time, reluctant to leave — leaving meant accepting the reality that had no place for her fantasies and expectations. The handle of the violin case clasped tight in her hand, she was walking slowly down the well-lit corridor when her sensitive ears caught a familiar tune floating from somewhere. She smiled. Must be a member of the staff — a professional musician would hardly entertain themselves with such banality. But the music still tugged on her sudden curiosity. The doors of the recital hall were open, and a man, who was undeniably _not_ Japanese, sat at the grand piano. She smiled again, patronizingly, when the diligent pianist floundered a little in the second episode, and came closer, still without a sound.

The man was middle-aged, most definitely over forty. Salt-and-pepper hair, a clean-cut profile, lips pressed tightly together in concentration, but a relaxed back, confident fingers — he probably didn’t practice much but lacked the beginner’s shyness. The man tilted his head to the side and she caught the unfocused gaze of calm green eyes and staggered back. The violin case hit the armrest of a chair, sending a reverberating echo through the hall and making her gasp.

The man turned his head sharply and started at her, blinking dazedly, and was on his feet before she knew it. The incomprehension in his eyes gave way to recognition — the one that probably mirrored her own, because she would recognize this _incredulous, shocked, hungry_ stare anywhere.

She walked to the grand piano slowly, holding his gaze, and paused in front on him and tilted her head up, barely resisting the urge to raise her hand and touch the clean-shaven cheek.

“Ma’am—” he said for some reason, hoarsely for some reason. “I mean, Miss… Miss Kent?”

“Victoria,” she breathed out. “You must—” _must have seen my dream, must want to hold me, must be lost for words, must be hearing nothing but your own heartbeat, must feel like you’re dying and being reborn…_ “You must be English too.” _Oh, well done,_ the inner voice drawled sarcastically. “I mean, you must be a musician too.” _Bravo._

The man gulped.

“No. I mean yes. I mean no.”

Victoria giggled as the strange spell faltered and released her. Her heart was slowing down. Now it just felt oddly nice and peaceful to stand face to face with this stranger, feeling the heat radiating from his body.

He chuckled as well, running an absentminded hand over his forehead.

“I’m sorry, I— I think I have forgotten my manners. William Lamb. Will.” He held out his hand. "Yes, I _am_ English too, but no, I’m not a musician, far from it.”

His fingers were warm — and careful, almost gentle. She squeezed them tighter, not wishing him to take her for a little bird or a delicate flower, and his fingers understood and squeezed her palm in response and let go, slowly, as though unwillingly, as though regretfully.

“I knew it!” she winked cheerfully, watching him with something dangerously close to affection as he chuckled self-consciously and carded his fingers through his hair.

***

“Second place! How is this even possible?!” he wouldn’t let it go, fuming on her behalf.

Victoria shrugged.

“ _For the sound energy and the research of a dramatic tension,”_ she sounded more bitter than she intended. Well, anyone could say that competitions were subjective and not always a yardstick to measure talent, but the first place was the first place. Even not particularly ambitious musicians like her couldn’t help feeling hurt and disappointed. In this particular case, there were two first prizes and she didn’t get either _._ “ _Philippe_ said that he liked how open-minded I was and how I accepted criticism. _Mademoiselle,”_ she imitated clumsily Monsieur Manoury’s accent, “ _you have a bad habit to write some very beautiful musical textures and then, to cover them with too many percussions_ ”. He recommended me some alterations and I rewrote the score overnight. He was very impressed."

“The French!” Will snorted derisively. “I believe— I know that your _Wings_ deserved the first prize.”

They had been wandering the ever-bustling streets of Tokyo for hours, talking the warm May night away. Neither could get enough. Neither could bear to say goodbye.

“Well, I can use the six hundred thousand yen anyway,” she sighed. Her father’s death left a gaping hole in more than her and her mother’s hearts. The Kents’ income took a nosedive — her mother was incapable of handling money wisely and the very thought of getting a paid job instead of her charity event planning made her blanch with horror. Victoria had to take over the management of family finances. She sold the stables and the horses, unable to imagine life without music — her father’s business would have left her much time to pursue her passion. They lived off the interest now. Victoria performed, ran a YouTube channel, did commissions, including indie film scores, wondering a little enviously how much famous composers got paid for the music to box office hits. She even thought about taking a shot at musicals. Even small cash prizes came in handy, so of course she was beyond happy to get thirty thousand dollars as the first prize in the Tchaikovsky competition… Just like she was beyond miserable to place seventh in the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, although money wasn’t the priority there. She cried her eyes out in her hotel room, mourning the lost recital in Carnegie Hall and the Stradivarius violin that used to belong to Josef Gingold himself.

Will smiled. Top pilots on international routes at his airline earned good money but he still remembered his own half-starved youth, when they had to count every penny, and Caro, who never stayed in one orchestra long, hardly contributed to the family budget in a tangible way. Luckily, he had made the right choice many years ago, choosing steel wings over the wings of music. If talents like Caro and Victoria had it so tough, a mediocrity like him didn’t stand a chance. More than that, steel wings made him truly happy and he forgot all his earthly woes and worries as they took him up into the sky. He couldn’t imagine doing anything else for a living.

“By the way, why did you decide to play the first violin yourself? As far as I know, Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation picks both the conductor and orchestra to perform the final concert.”

“Do you know many female conductors?” Victoria smiled. Will looked so adorably boyish when he furrowed his brows in concentration. “When I found out that the Tokyo Philharmonic was performing with Abe Kanako conducting, I knew I couldn’t miss an opportunity like this. I don’t perform with orchestras a lot, mostly solo recitals, sometimes in duos, trios or quartets… There hadn’t been a precedent but they didn’t mind— What?”

He was looking at her with an odd expression in his eyes, one of… affectionate desperation.

“I’m just thinking… hadn’t you come out on that stage tonight, we might have never met.”

She didn’t say anything lest the sudden fear mixed with an aching tenderness for the man she had known for a few hours spilled out as a silly remark or, even worse, as an unwanted confession — _I saw you in my dreams, I have been looking for you my whole life_ — or as tears. She would scare him off, and he would run away, and what would she do then, oh how would she go back to her wingless life…

“Why didn’t you stay to the end? Why did you leave?”

It was his turn to swallow his words now. What could he say? Should he tell her how he had slumped against the closed door, blinking, dazzled by the bright light after the soft dimness of the concert hall, crumpling the shirt on his chest as he tried to placate his unhinged heart? How he had waited for that moment year in year out, secretly hoping even when he stopped waiting — and when the moment finally found him, he just up and fled in a fit of disgraceful cowardice? It was a miracle that she for some reason thought she liked this perfect stranger. If he let it all out, all this madness, the best case scenario was her looking at him like he was a psycho, and the worst case scenario… she would walk away.

“I had a headache… a splitting headache,” he forced out at last. “And I thought… maybe I was running a fever as well… and I thought I’d get some air.” _Wow, you really put a lot of thought into this,_ said the mocking voice that loved calling him an idiot. The expression on Victoria’s face said that she had heard the voice and agreed with it completely.

“How are you feeling now?” she asked snidely and stopped and spun around to catch the sleeve of his jacket, pull him closer and press a hand to his forehead.

He grabbed her shoulders for support as he tried to keep his balance, and he saw the inside of her right elbow in the bright light of the street lamp. He stood still like a stuffed dummy, his eyes glued to the winged violin tattoo, a very basic one, almost schematic.

“Much… much better.” Will licked his suddenly dry lips, entranced, tracing the ink with a thumb, while his other hand, which seemed to have a mind of its own, moved slowly from her bare shoulder up to her neck. Victoria shivered, looking away from his parted lips, and noticed the focus of his attention, and then a fragment of a familiar symbol under the cuff of his shirt caught her eye, and her fingers rushed to undo the button, almost breaking the nails in the process. An elaborate treble clef with long outspread wings twisted along the wrist of Will’s left arm.

***

The streets of Tokyo had seen a lot in the many centuries of its existence. Toilets could talk here, one could dance with robots, eat in a hedgehog cafe or an owl cafe, get canned bread, silkworm pupae or worn panties from a vending machine, and a whole district was the realm of pop culture… In other words, two white gaijins making out with abandon under a street lamp in front of a sex shop didn’t even make the top two hundred of weird things this city was full of.

But for these two, the city and the whole world faded and vanished. There was no worry, no fear, no doubt — their souls had met before their lips did, and the rest felt completely natural and right. They kissed through laughter and laughed through kisses, kissing and laughing off the years spent without each other, and the new skin breathed freedom and happiness, and the hands longed to map the unfamiliar territory that already felt like home, to commit each curve, each hollow and swell, each mole, each scar to the memory of the body.

The taxi driver muttered an awe-struck _kuso!_ and looked away politely from the rearview mirror.

They found themselves staring at their own reflections in the elevator: the floor to ceiling mirror showed a man and a woman with swollen crimson lips, feverishly burning cheeks and shining eyes, holding hands. No one would think at this very moment that they had more than twenty years between them — nothing was separating them, not even clothes or air. They were Adam and Eve who tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, were expelled from the Garden of Eden and never regretted it for a second.

Will inserted the key card into the lock and pushed the door when the little light blinked green. _Green light_ , she thought, nuzzling his neck blissfully, high on the smell of his aftershave, his sweat, his skin, and stumbling in after him on rubbery legs, _green eyes. Mine._

“Want anything? To drink? To eat?” Will let go of her hand as he dropped on his knees by the minibar, and the sharp sense of loss nearly made her whimper.

“Just you.” She snatched the bottle of green tea out of his hand, shoved it back in, knocking down the neat rows of cans and bottles, and slammed the door shut. Will pulled his fingers away just in time and lost his balance, and flopped down on his butt — and froze, looking up at her. He looked at her like she was a deity who had come down to earth from Heaven to answer all his questions and give him everything he had ever desired. What did he see that she herself couldn’t when she studied her face in the mirror? A too upturned nose, a too round face, a too small body with too great expectations… Suddenly, she saw his eyes very close, and his jacket lay on the floor, and she blinked and found herself in his lap, one of his hands roaming under the hem of her dressed hitched up to her waist, the other pulling down the zipper on her back.

She woke up to the buzzing of her phone. _Albert_. She sighed and answered, untangling herself from the bedsheet. The hissing of running water in the bathroom stopped. Albert’s voice asked why she hadn’t called him back last night as she had said she would. Albert’s voice wondered when her flight was landing in London. Albert’s voice trembled a little, as if he could _feel it_ , although it was probably just her imagination stirred by the guilty conscience. She looked around. The dress hung neatly by the shoulders on a hanger on the closet door.

Will stepped out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around his hips, and she stared in admiration at his broad chest, strong shoulders, long legs… The night was a tangle of a sweet, almost dreamlike chaos, and it was impossible to say where her body ended and his started, because there was no border between them, they were one being, and everything one of them felt echoed in the other. Now, in the light of day, she could finally see all of him and she was enjoying the view. She was about to tell him that and not at all what she blurted out in the next moment.

“I probably should’ve told you last night. I have a boyfriend.”

***

Victoria was around twelve when she started having this dream. It was black and white and perfectly noiseless, like a silent movie without background music, like an old TV screen with muted sound. She dreamed of the wings soaring in the wind above the clouds, enormous gray wings spread out on either side of her. She would look down at the tiny boxes of houses and green rectangles of fields or myriads of night city lights. She saw it once a week, sometimes more often, for several years. Her mother said knowingly that it was normal for teenagers, that it was just hormones. However, later, she admitted that she too had had a recurring dream when she had been Victoria’s age — in hers, horses were galloping across a meadow and she felt deliriously happy and free. “Now imagine how I felt when your father took me to the horse racing track for our first date!” Marie laughed and heaved a wistful sigh. “Of course, it was only a coincidence but if it hadn’t been for that dream, I don’t think I would have been so willing to agree to a second date, and who knows, you might have not been born at all!” Victoria giggled but she never really stopped thinking about it. On her fourteenth birthday, she got a tattoo. The good-natured, easy-going Edward Kent clutched at his chest, thinking that his little girl was in too much of a hurry to grow up. Mom’s reaction was… louder. “You are a classical musician, not a rocker!” she yelled. One might think Victoria had covered her back with sculls and daggers or something like that — for goodness’ sake, it was just a few simple clean lines on the inside of her elbow.

The wings stopped haunting her dreams when she entered her first year of conservatory, and she met Albert at the graduation concert as he was accompanying his grandmother, who happened to be Victoria’s theory and composition professor. Mom was delighted beyond measure. “Remember that dream of yours?” she whispered fiercely in her ear, when the courteous young man stepped away to fetch drinks for everyone. Victoria nodded and blushed, her heart pounding. Albert was tall, really good-looking and adored classical music. Oh, and he was an ornithologist. How could it _not_ be fate? They had been going out four years and she suspected a marriage proposal was not far off, but something niggled at her, something that got in the way of joyful anticipation and impulse shopping for bridal magazines. Albert loved her tattoo, although he did say once that it would be even cooler if she had it made more realistic, with large black wings. His bird, his _spirit animal_ , as he would say, reducing Victoria to a howling ball of insultingly hysterical laughter, was a condor. Victoria was shocked at her own response to his advice: she threw a fit and didn’t speak to a very confused Albert for a week.

The dream came back a year ago. At least once a week, Victoria woke up thoughtful and frowned, looking at the back of Albert’s head. Her dear Albert, her angel of a boyfriend, a really nice young man… whom she just didn’t love the way she was supposed to. The way she needed to love.

***

Will sighed. He had heard most of her phone call from the bathroom and the situation was clear as day.

“I know.”

He looked at her pensively and, for some reason, told her a blatant lie.

“Actually, I have a wife.”

Not that he didn’t have a reason to lie. Of course, the reason was not her boyfriend — Will would laugh if he could. He would take her hand and never let go, and all the _Alberts_ in the world wouldn’t stop him. But what could he give to a girl who was a whole life younger than him? He had already failed once, and he failed miserably. Grief brings some couples closer together, but he and Caro only tormented each other: she blamed him, he withdrew into himself. Her miscarriages crippled them both, and the last one tore something very important out of either’s soul, something that made them compatible, and threw them far apart like a nuclear blast, so that they ended up on different continents. They couldn’t help each other; they couldn’t even help themselves. Will was saved by a loyal friend — Emma took him to Melbourne. He spent a week brooding on the Portmans’ couch, then got up, shaved and went to his interview at Qantas.

He met with Caro in London two years later, on her insistence, in the favorite pub of their youth. Will barely recognized his wife in the woman sitting across him. A ghost of the yearning that would never fully go away still lingered in her eyes but she was friendly and almost calm, only her fingers were slightly restless as she put the divorce papers on the table before him. “Arthur and I are having a baby. We wanted to wait the first trimester to be over to make sure,” she said a bit hesitantly. “I’m sorry, Will.” A bitter lump rose to his throat but he didn’t let his pain get the better of him. How could he not want the woman he loved to be happy? His unhappiness wasn’t her fault. Perhaps she was right in blaming him after all. Perhaps Arthur would succeed where he had failed. As he hugged her still slim form goodbye, his fingers lingered around her right wrist. He smiled ruefully. A tattoo artist had easily transformed the graceful treble clef, their first wedding anniversary gift to each other, into an ugly wellington and lasered the wings off. How on earth had Caro, his ( _not his anymore, Arthur’s_ ) sophisticated, eccentric fairy princess, even agreed to mark her delicate skin with this monstrosity? She shrugged guiltily. “He has one to match. We… make a pair.”

Soon he started seeing the dream he hadn’t seen since he was a child. He stood on the shore of a stormy sea, only there was music wafting through the air instead of the usual roaring of the waves, rolls of thunder and the squawking of seagulls. Everything served that music — the waves rose and fell with the moaning of the strings, lightning flashed to the rhythm of the booming tubas, the seagulls opened their beaks and the warbling of oboes came out… Little Will would laugh delightedly, reaching out his hands to the sea — and then he would wake up and sob with disappointment because he _couldn’t remember._ He was twenty-two when he fell in love with a delicate young cello player, at first sight, at first note, and decided, recalling his childhood dream, that it was fate.

The dream came back with a vengeance, vehemently, as if to remind him that time flies, and this time he remembered it all to the last note. But it seemed like fate was only laughing at him again — or wanted to test him, to see if he was selfish enough to ruin another life. And he would rather descend into madness listening to her _Wings_ every night until the end of his days.

“In London,” he added, more firmly, and nodded to rid her of any lingering doubt.

***

She dressed slowly, avoiding eye contact. That’s right. A boyfriend was something still up in the air, a wife on the other hand…

Victoria picked up her violin case from the floor and looked back at him, lost and sad. She opened her mouth, about to say something, but shook her head and pushed on the door handle. The door closed with a bang, making him flinch. His heart felt impossibly heavy and tight. He sat on the bed and dropped his head into his hands.

***

Emma paused to glance back on the petite young woman with brown hair and sad blue eyes who walked past her hugging a violin case to her chest. The woman looked vaguely familiar. The elevator doors came together to hide her from Emma’s eyes. She shrugged and moved on: crews of passenger flights saw too many people every day. She adjusted her hold on the cardboard Starbucks coffee cup and raised her hand to knock, when the door was jerked open and Will, wearing only his pants, nearly sent her flying. He stood in the middle of the corridor, rubbing his jaw and looking hesitantly towards the elevator, and Emma remembered — and then she knew.

“Well, what have you gone and done now?” she asked softly.

He turned to her, took a deep breath but dropped his arms and walked back into his room. Emma followed. She had a hunch but she wasn’t going anywhere until she had all the details.

A couple of months after Will had started working at Qantas, Emma became his first officer, and a year later, Alfred Paget, who claimed he had been bored without his favorite captain, moved to Melbourne under the wing of the “Flying Kangaroo” as well.

On their very first flight together, the first officer and the chief flight attendant spent the night in the hotel bar, arguing until they were blue in the face which one of them had had a crush on the captain the longest. “But I’m much younger!” Alfred muttered thickly and instantly corrected himself as he met Emma’s indignant stare, “I mean I’ve only known him for seven years, and you, you, like, shared a potty in the kindergarten or something.” They agreed that layovers could be so much more interesting for everybody involved if it wasn’t for Captain Lamb’s inflexible moral principles. “What about Mr. Portman?” Alfred giggled. Emma brushed him off, “Even Portman would understand. Actually, I’m not sure who he’d be jealous of.”

“William Lamb, you are such an idiot,” she sighed after he had told her the whole story. He smiled for a split second and then his face crumpled again. Emma put the cold coffee cup on the desk and put her arms around his naked shoulders. “There, there. We are going to find her and we are going to tell her that you’re just a silly little coward. You should get dressed first though. I might be a pilot but I’m also a lady. A married lady at that.”

“My apologies, Lady Portman,” he smirked, pulling his shirt on. “If only you had given me some warning, I would have received you in the library like a respectable married lady.”

Emma laughed, relived to see her old friend’s gloomy face take a more familiar sure and sarcastic expression.

***

By the take-off time, the whole crew knew about the captain’s tragic romance. Will’s nostrils flared as he clenched his fists, demonstratively ignoring his first officer unless it was strictly work-related. Emma kept a guilty silence. The flight engineer was quiet too, just in case. Emma actually shared the exciting information only with Alfred. The latter gasped and rolled his eyes dreamily: to think that the captain had almost found happiness in the ruins of Alfred’s love life. Emma chortled and asked if, by any chance, it was Eddie Drummond from British Airways that she had seen him with in a café in the business lounge half an hour ago. Alfred blushed, which was not typical of him, and refused to give her details, which was even less typical.

Will finished greeting the passengers in a bored voice, switched off the intercom, sat back in his seat and, probably having found the right words at last, opened his mouth to tell Emma everything he thought about fraternization in the crew, when a disheveled and very excited Alfred stormed into the cockpit.

“Will! I mean Captain Lamb, sir! Here’s the thing—”

Will sat up anxiously, mentally going through the list of possible emergencies and putting together an action plan.

“I talked to Eddie today… I mean Mr. Drummond, you know, Captain Peel’s first officer—”

“Mr. Paget!” Will snapped, his eyes flashing, his nerves finally giving in. “Your private life does not concern me. I would thank you not to include me in anything that has nothing to do with the job you’re hired to do.”

“I’m sorry, Captain, but I have to say this,” the chief flight attendant tilted his chin up, ignoring the first officer’s hissing. Perhaps he thought that he had lived enough in this world. “AnywayCaptainPeelisretiringandBritishAirwaysislookingforareplacement!” he blurted out in one breath.

“Mr. Paget,” Will’s voice was menacing now.

“Come on, Captain. Haven’t you had enough of all the nasty crawling and flying critters?” Albert backed away to the door, retreating before the approaching superior force. “I keep spending money on sunscreen and I’m always broke, Captain. I miss the rain and talking about the rain. How about you? Also, Eddie says that if I lived in London, we could try again, and then what would I need all those foreigners for, if I had Eddie? Wouldn’t you like that, Captain?”

“Would I like to try again with Eddie?!” Will switched to loud whisper because Alfred had opened the door. “Alfie, are you drunk?”

“Nah, Eddie would be all mine,” the young man smiled and stepped aside, and Will’s heart sank into his shoes.

Standing in front of him, shifting from foot to foot and wringing her hands nervously was Victoria.

***

She left her tears in the shower.

What was the use? She knew now that there was no point searching — what had seemed like a possible future only yesterday was an impossible past now, half-true, half-real. Still, she couldn’t jerk around the man who had never done anything to hurt her either.

She called him from the airport as she waited for the check-in and asked not to pick her up. Then she said she was sorry. When Albert finally gave up and stopped begging her to change her mind, she asked him to pick up his stuff from her apartment and leave the keys on the stand by the door. Then she said she was sorry again.

Tears wouldn’t come, and somehow that made it even worse. She felt bad for Albert, for the nice guy who deserved her tears at the very least.

She looked up at the departures board. Frankfurt 1:30. London 2:25. Kuala Lumpur 2:50. Melbourne 3:50. _London. Melbourne._

_Actually, I have a wife. In London._

He had a wife in London, but he lived in Melbourne.

Suddenly angry — at him, at his wife, at Albert who was too kind and nice, at her parents, who had brought such a dolt of a daughter into this world, at the blond young man in a flight attendant uniform, who was too busy staring at the retreating back of some pilot to mind where he was going — she headed for the British Airways stand. Of course, she wasn’t able to return her non-refundable ticket and had to pay almost one sixth of her prize for a ticket to Melbourne. Two and a half hours until the check-in. Two and a half hours to think what she was going to hell him.

 _You know, Will, when Dad brought my first violin home… I was only four but I remember every little detail. He squatted before me, told me to hold out my hands and carefully placed that tiny violin in them. I had no idea how to extract sound or even what kind of notes there were. But I had seen enough concerts on TV, so I just put it between my chin and shoulder and swung the bow. Mom and Dad covered their ears and I laughed. Never in the four years of my life had I been that happy. I realized right there that this was_ mine _, that I would never ever trade it for anything in the world. And I felt the same when you held my hand._

Perhaps she was making another stupid mistake, chasing something ephemeral. Perhaps this wasn’t even his flight and she would have to beg his airline reps at Melbourne Airport to contact him for her. None of it was important at the moment. An hour and forty minutes until the check-in.

_You know, Will, there was a German composer named Max Bruch. He didn’t play the violin but he wrote a lot for it and he adored it — even his bronze sculpture in Bergisch Gladbach holds a violin. Bruch said that you have to treat your violin like a beloved, to do everything to make it content and happy. I think this is very true… Anyway, Bruch has this amazing Adagio Appassionato. It starts in a minor key, somber and tragic, and ends in a major key… well, I don’t really know how to talk about music with this kind of words but it’s like the violin laments, complains, and then grief slowly, softly turns into consolation and, finally, into hope. Will. I don’t know your life but I think I know you…_

Sure, a stammering lecture was exactly what they needed… She sighed. Twenty-five minutes until the check-in.

_You know, Will, I always knew I wouldn’t play any other instrument. I wanted to be a virtuoso, to play all my favorite pieces to perfection, to awe the jury at competitions with my flawless technique and unique interpretation… Only in my last year of conservatory I changed my major from violin to composition. Mom shook her head and tried to talk me out of it, my professors were disappointed… But I simply knew that I didn’t want to walk someone else’s well-trodden path, even if it was on my hands instead of on my feet, or backwards, or skipping… I wanted to create. I wanted to find my own way and follow it without looking back on the centuries of tradition, on Mom, on established experts — I still do. In everything, Will._

Fifteen minutes until boarding.

When the jet bridge finally ended, a friendly, smiling flight attendant greeted her and held out his hand for her boarding pass, and, to her surprise, she recognized him as the young man had that stepped on her foot in the lounge.

_You know, Will, I always loved to fly, saying that I must have been a bird in my previous life, that to me, flying was a physical equivalent of music. My friends laughed and pointed out that many people enjoyed flying but I should wait and see, what with the touring and always moving around, it would get old really quickly. But the view of an airplane wing in the window still fills me with such euphoria and landings always make me feel so sad. I can’t imagine now why I thought I needed bird wings. They can’t lift me up into the air. Yours can._

Ten minutes until take-off.

_You know, I feel— I know I love you. I think I’ve always loved you, even before I met you. I realize now why I have been so restless all my life. I have been looking for you._

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” the cabin speakers came alive with a familiar raspy voice. Victoria bit her lip, not fully trusting her ears, and closed her eyes: please, _please…_ “This is Captain William Lamb speaking. On behalf of my crew and Qantas Airways I’d like to welcome you on board flight QF—”

The rest of the captain’s address drowned in the deafening sound of her heartbeat. She sat sniffling and smiling sheepishly. The blond flight attendant found her like this and leaned over, asking if she was alright, offering water, Kleenex, breathing exercises. She blinked back her tears, read his name tag and sniffled again.

“Alfred? Alfred, I really need to see your captain.”

_You know, dreams and tattoos… they may be important, or maybe it’s just a coincidence. What really matters is that I recognized your eyes and you heard my soul. The only thing that matters is that with you, I finally felt like I was home._

Alfred heard her name and gasped incredulously and beckoned her to follow him.

When the cockpit door opened again and Alfred stepped gingerly aside to let out Will, who emerged in the doorway, all versions of her speech evaporated from her mind. Eyes fixed on the confused face of the man she hadn’t expected to see ever again only a few hours ago, she said only, “You know, I think you lied to me. And even if you didn’t, I think—”

She didn’t finish because in the next moment, a pair of strong arms squeezed her shoulders, pressing her cheek to the scratchy wool of the uniform jacket that felt softer against her skin than the finest cashmere.

_You know, Will…_

“ _I know_ ,” a strangled voice breathed out into her hair.

She inhaled the familiar smell, her fists frantically crumpling the fabric of his shirt under the unbuttoned jacket, and opened her eyes, and laughed happily because there it was, right under her nose, soaring in the deep blue expanse. A pair of silver wings.

* * *

**_my playlist:_ **


End file.
